The Underground Railroad was made up of a series of safe houses and slave activists that made a great change in the history of slavery. The Underground Railroad was a very dangerous operation. The abolitionists always faced risking arrest and sometimes even faced risking their lives. So they created the Underground Railroad. (Donald, Underground 21) The Underground Railroad started operating as early as the 1500's. This was when the first Africans were brought to Spanish colonies in the New World as slaves. However the peak of the railroad lasted from around 1830 till 1860. The Underground Railroad was neither underground nor a railroad. It was a secret network of safe houses and people who were against slavery. The antislavery activists were blacks, whites, Native Americans, and Quakers. ("Story of the Underground Railroad") They played a very important part in helping slaves escape and become free. Every home that welcomed runaway slaves, every person who offered food or clothing, and every person that helped the slaves in any other way was considered a part of the Underground Railroad.

Harriet Tubman, full-length portrait, seated in ch...

Harriet Tubman, an African American abolitionist a...

English: Whole map of the underground railroad. Ne...

There were all types of terms and code words used in the Underground Railroad. The term, Underground Railroad, had supposedly originated when a slave, who had fled from his home, disappeared without a trace while being chased by his owner. His owner was left confused and wondered if the slave had "gone off on some underground road." ("Story of the Underground Railroad") Other names and terms also contributed to the name, the Underground Railroad. The homes and businesses where fugitives, or slaves, would rest and eat were called "stations". The stations were run by "stationmasters" and the people who supplied money or goods were "stockholders". The "conductors" were the people who moved and guided fugitives from one station to the next. And the...

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... South Carolina ... network of safe houses called stations, operated by agents or stationmasters. Engineers or conductors transported the runaways from one station to another. Stockholders contributed food, clothing, and money. (Blight 3-5; Underground Railroad ) Shortly after her escape from slavery ...

... Maryland plantation to New York and married a free black woman named Anna Murray, Douglas moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts. There, he published a weekly newspaper, the North Star, as well as joined the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society ...

... slave on a plantation in Dorchester County, Maryland. In 1849, after hearing that she might ... next train." Running the Underground Railroad became much more dangerous after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act ... with the Underground Railroad. Levi Coffin, a Quaker, was known as the unofficial president ...

... slavery, the start of the civil war, and it was being one of our nation's first major anti-slavery movements. The history of the railroad is quite varied according to whom you are talking. Slavery ... quickly. Abolition Societies began to form, ... the first colonies began, slaves ... labor. The South, however had ...

... Usually historians describe it as a loosely constructed network of routes that originated in the South, and leaded north to Canada. Escape routes, however, ... as the rate of success. The operations of the Underground Railroad were strongly based on secret codes that alerted "passengers" when it was ...

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